Vitamins are substances that your body needs to grow and develop normally; if you have low levels of certain vitamins, you may develop a deficiency disease. Supplements can also be important to provide your body with extra nutrients depending on the activities you do. Discuss topics including vitamin deficiency, food to counter vitamin deficiency, sufficient vitamin levels, and supplements.

Cirrhosis and Multi-Vitamins

People living with end stage cirrhosis should know that vitamin deficientcy also comes along with having a damaged liver. So as part of the healing process vitamins are a must to keep your body strong and speed up recovery.

Manganese is found in every multivitamin I have ever seen. The unforunate thing is that for cirrhotic patients it is harmful to the liver. It seems the would make a multivitamin with out manganese but I have yet to find one. Anyone else run into this? Any suggestions?

I should add that the porta potty theory of vitamins probably does apply to time-release supplements. There's only so much time the body is going to take to digest anything, and then it's going to evacuate it, and that's before time release vitamins release. Still, you'll get something, not nothing. And if you're on medication, be careful with milk thistle. All medication is toxic to some degree, and milk thistle may remove some of it before it can be absorbed.

Of all vitamins, B vitamins go straight through the porta potty. A good multi taken as indicated, that is, with food, in doses divided through the day, one that is natural and uses the proper forms of nutrients, and that doesn't use fillers and binders that can't dissolve as cheap vitamins do, will be absorbed. Will all of it be absorbed? No, that's why the doses are so high. We don't absorb all the nutrients in food, either. Ask the porta potty people about all the undigested food they find! The closer a multi is to food, the better it will be absorbed. As for zinc, it can be overdosed on easily. Just goes to show.

If you have advanced liver disease, unfortunately, you're going to have to devise a nutrient program that consists of individual supplements. I knew someone, a customer of mine when I managed health food stores, who bought nearly fifty individual supplements. He never used combinations, so he could manage them carefully. His doctors told him he was dead from liver disease about 20 years before I met him, so again, just goes to show.

I should add that the porta potty theory of vitamins probably does apply to time-release supplements. There's only so much time the body is going to take to digest anything, and then it's going to evacuate it, and that's before time release vitamins release. Still, you'll get something, not nothing. And if you're on medication, be careful with milk thistle. All medication is toxic to some degree, and milk thistle may remove some of it before it can be absorbed.

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